Someone sent me a secret transcript from the Challenger proving that the astronauts were alive after the
Shuttle exploded. It claims there was a NASA cover-up to hide this information. Is it true?- question from Margaret Hughes

A previous article describes the tragic Challenger disaster that
occurred twenty years ago this week. As explained in that article, the vehicle did not explode in the normal
sense of the word but suffered a catastrophic structural failure instigated by a flaw in the solid rocket booster.
At the time, however, it was not immediately clear what had happened and there was much confusion in contemporary
news reports. Most reporters had assumed that the crew was instantly killed and vaporized when the Shuttle broke
apart. Many in NASA shared this belief, so there was little emphasis on locating remains during the subsequent
recovery operations. The priority was instead placed on recovering portions of the vehicle that might explain what
had caused the catastrophe.

It was several weeks into the recovery effort when divers discovered a large pile of debris about 100 ft (30 m)
deep on the ocean floor. This debris turned out to be what was left of Challenger's crew cabin. The Presidential
Commission organized to investigate the accident later determined that the Orbiter's forward fuselage had separated
from the rest of the vehicle during the Shuttle's break-up about 75 seconds into the flight. As it separated, the
forward fuselage tore a collection of wiring harnesses and other connections loose from the aft portion of the
Orbiter. These long cables trailed behind the crew compartment and prevented it from tumbling, stabilizing the
cabin much like the tail of a kite.

The Shuttle had broken apart at an altitude of about 46,000 ft (14,035 m). Following its separation, the crew
compartment stabilized in a nose-down attitude within 10 to 20 seconds as its forward momentum carried it upward to
some 64,000 ft (19,525 m). The cabin then began a free-fall towards the ocean, yawing back and forth slightly
during its ballistic trajectory. The free-fall lasted about two minutes and 45 seconds until the compartment
impacted on the ocean surface. At an estimated speed of 207 mph (333 km/h), the cabin shattered due to the 200 g's
it experienced. The broken debris fell to the ocean floor and scattered over an oval field about 60 ft (18 m)
across.

Challenger crew compartment following the break-up

Despite this violent chain of events, the question has always remained as to whether the crew remained alive and
aware of what was happening as their tragic fate approached. Rumors began almost immediately after the accident
when NASA officials were accused of lying and concealing evidence that the astronauts were still conscious at the
time of the crew cabin's impact. The "transcript" you mention became a primary piece of evidence conspiracy
theorists used to support their claims of a NASA cover-up. A common example of this rumor is shown below.

A secret NASA tape reveals that the crew of the shuttle Challenger not only survived the explosion that
ripped the vessel apart; they screamed, cried, cursed and prayed for three hellish minutes before they
slammed into the Atlantic and perished on January 28, 1986.

The tape is said to begin with a startled crewman screaming, "What happened? What happened? Oh God - No!"
Screams and curses are heard - several crewmen begin to weep - and then others bid their families farewell.

Two minutes forty-five seconds later the tape ends. That's when the shuttles crew compartment, which
remained intact after the vessel exploded over the Atlantic, hit the ocean at over 2,000 miles per hour,
instantly killing the crew.

"Cover up? Of course there was a coverup," declared Robert Hotz, a member of the Presidential commission
that investigated the disaster." NASA can't face the fact that they put these astronauts in a situation
where they didn't have adequate equipment to survive. NASA doesn't give a damn about anything but covering
its ass," he said.

The official account released by NASA ends with shuttle pilot Michael Smith saying, " Uh-oh! " Some NASA
employees have evidently heard more-much more. And they provided the rest of the account based on what
they've discussed within NASA in the last five years. The astronauts had time and realized something was
happening after the shuttle broke up.

"All shuttle astronauts carry personal recorders and the tape in question apparently came from Christa's
(McAuliffe), which was recovered after the shuttle disaster," said Hotz. Jarvis was sitting beside her, and
when he figured out what was happening he said, "Give me your hand."

"NASA insists there's nothing like that on tape but they're talking about the mission tape, not Christa's.
So they're not lying, but they're not telling the truth, either."

A journalist with close ties to NASA was even more emphatic, "There are persistent rumors, dating back to
the disaster, that this tape is absolutely bone-chilling."

The following transcript begins two seconds after NASA's official version ends, with pilot Michael Smith
saying, "Uh-oh!" Times from the moment of takeoff are shown in minutes and seconds and are approximate.
The sex of the speaker is indicated by M or F.

Unfortunately for believers, this "transcript" is actually a hoax. It first appeared in a February 1991 issue of
the tabloid newspaper Weekly World News. Anyone
familiar with this tabloid knows that it is hardly a credible source of information and is best known for creating
rather ridiculous and comical headlines based on nothing but pure imagination. Since it first appeared, the
falsified transcript has become separated from its original source of questionable integrity and been perpetuated
thanks to the internet.

Cover of the Weekly World News issue in which the Challenger transcript appeared

Not only is the transcript itself a work of fiction, but many of the details describing where it came from are
simply not possible. For example, the Weekly World News article states that the recording was made by a
personal recorder carried by Christa McAuliffe. While astronauts are regularly equipped with small tape recorders
for taking notes, they are stowed in equipment lockers during launch. Only one personal recorder was recovered
after the accident and it had not been removed from its storage container.

Space Shuttle forward fuselage decks

The transcript also contains at least one quote that seemingly refers to Judy Resnick while another quote is said
to come from Greg Jarvis. Even if Christa McAuliffe was carrying a personal recorder, it would have been
impossible for her to communicate with both of these astronauts since they were seated on different decks. Mission
commander Scobee, pilot Smith, Onizuka, and Resnik were located on the flight deck while McAuliffe, Jarvis, and
McNair were seated one deck below on the mid deck. Those on different decks would not have been able to talk to or
hear each other after the Orbiter broke apart.

Space Shuttle flight deck looking forward

The crew communicated by means of an intercom system, but this system would no longer have functioned since the
cabin lost electrical power after it separated from the rest of the Orbiter. The power supply is located aft of
the crew compartment in the midfuselage, underneath the payload bay. All power was abruptly lost once the crew
cabin broke loose from the rest of the Orbiter. Without the intercom and with their words muffled by their
helmets, it would have been extremely difficult for the astronauts to talk to anyone, except perhaps their
immediate neighbors if they were able to open their visors. Furthermore, the wreckage of the crew cabin remained
on the ocean floor for six weeks until it was recovered. Any unprotected audio tapes would not have survived that
length of time immersed in sea water, assuming they would have even survived the 200 g impact to begin with.

Space Shuttle mid deck looking aft

The article does contain elements of truth, however. For example, the Shuttle was equipped with a voice recording
device that did survive. This was the operational data recorder that is similar in design and purpose to the
cockpit voice recorder carried aboard commercial aircraft. This device recorded all comments made over the
Shuttle's intercom system and was successfully recovered after the accident. The recorder worked exactly as it was
supposed to from the time it was automatically activated about two minutes prior to launch until it lost power as
the craft broke apart. The following is the actual transcript of the crew's conversations as obtained from the
operational recorder. The transcript only contains the conversation of the four astronauts on the flight deck.
While the three on the mid deck were also on the same intercom, they made no comments while the recorder was
functioning.

(Learn more about the data recorders aboard the Space Shuttle, how their power supplies function, and the effort to
recover transcripts from Challenger by reading these descriptions from NASA experts.)

Even though the heart of the Weekly World News "transcript" has been exposed as the forgery it is, the
article does raise legitimate questions about whether or not the crew survived the initial break-up of the Orbiter
and its descent back to Earth. The person given responsibility for investigating this subject was NASA's director
of Life Sciences Dr. Joseph Kerwin. The results of his medical investigation and autopsies of the crew were
documented in a July 1986 report. Kerwin's report
addresses the following primary questions:

Did the crew cabin survive the break-up of the Orbiter?

If so, did the cabin maintain pressure?

If the cabin de-pressurized, could the crew have remained conscious?

Were the crew members aware of their situation and did they take steps to save themselves?

As discussed earlier, NASA originally did little to contradict the notion that the astronauts never knew what was
happening and lost their lives soon after the apparent explosion. NASA was forced to abandon this position after
camera footage had established that the intact forward fuselage could be seen emerging from the cloud that
surrounded the Shuttle as it disintegrated. Dr. Kerwin's findings further concluded that the accelerations
experienced by the crew cabin as it separated from the rest of the Shuttle were well within the tolerable limits
for a human.

Cloud of propellant gases surrounding the Shuttle as it broke up

Even though the crew would likely have survived the disintegration of the Orbiter, however, it is more difficult
to determine whether they remained conscious. The Shuttle broke apart around 46,000 ft (14,035 m) where the
external air is only about 18% as dense as it is at sea level. The crew cabin continued to rise another 18,000 ft
(5,485 m) after it broke free where the atmospheric density drops below 8% of its sea level value. There is so
little oxygen at these altitudes that a human would pass out in no more than five to fifteen seconds, and the cabin
remained at or above 46,000 ft for nearly one minute. If the cabin retained its airtight integrity, however, the
crew would likely have had sufficient oxygen to remain conscious even at these extreme heights.

Much of Dr. Kerwin's investigation focused on whether the crew compartment did indeed remain pressurized during its
free-fall or decompressed so rapidly that the crew would have passed out. Unfortunately, this question was
particularly difficult to answer given the state of the wreckage that was recovered. On one hand, the sheer number
of connections that ripped loose as the crew cabin separated from the Orbiter ought to have provided multiple paths
for air to leak out of the compartment. If the damage allowed air to escape rapidly while the cabin was still at
high altitudes, it is likely that the astronauts would have passed out within a matter of seconds. Kerwin did find
evidence consistent with a rapid decompression that would have incapacitated the crew quickly, but there was no
conclusive proof to confirm or refute it. The violence of the compartment's impact on the ocean surface combined
with the six weeks the wreckage and remains spent submerged in sea water made it impossible to determine whether
the cabin retained pressure or precisely when and how the astronauts lost their lives.

One of the most intriguing clues as to the crew's fate was the recovery of several Personal Egress Air Packs
(PEAPs). The PEAPs provided the astronauts with a supply of oxygen in the case of an emergency. Four PEAPs were
recovered from the ocean floor, and three had been manually activated and partly consumed. Those believing in a
cover-up point to this fact as proof that at least three crew members remained conscious throughout the descent.
That argument does not necessarily hold up, however, since the primary purpose of the PEAPs was to provide
breathable air in the case of an emergency on the launch pad where atmospheric pressure is high. The PEAPs were
not intended for high-altitude use and the crew were not wearing oxygen masks or pressure suits to function in the
thin atmosphere to which they may have been exposed. The fact that the fourth PEAP was not activated suggests that
the astronauts may have been attempting to turn these devices on at the same time as the effects of oxygen
deprivation were causing them to lose consciousness. Since the PEAPs were not designed to function in the low
density atmosphere above 20,000 ft (6,100 m), the air they provided would have rapidly dissipated and not prevented
the crew from passing out.

Dr. Kerwin ultimately came to a similar conclusion. Based on his examination of the crew cabin wreckage, data
recorders, imagery of the cabin during its descent, and the crew's remains, he determined that the astronauts were
probably unconscious and unable to communicate during their final minutes. Kerwin's report stated, "The cause
of death of the Challenger astronauts cannot be positively determined, the forces to which the crew were exposed
during the orbiter breakup were probably not sufficient to cause death or serious injury, and the crew possibly,
but not certainly, lost consciousness in the seconds following orbiter breakup due to in-flight loss of crew module
pressure."

Memorial to the Challenger crew at Arlington National Cemetery

It is unfortunate, though not surprising, that NASA received so much criticism for its handling of the Challenger
accident. Much of it was self-inflicted by the agency's attitudes of secrecy, such as fighting court battles to
keep photos of wreckage out of the media and refusing to allow an autopsy of the crew's remains by the county
coroner. It is likely that NASA did so in order to protect the families of the astronauts from further grief and
limit additional damage to the agency's own reputation.

However, NASA's actions probably only worsened its credibility and came under intense attack by Robert Hotz.
Mentioned in the Weekly World News article, Hotz is indeed a real person and served as a member of the
Commission that investigated the Challenger tragedy. Hotz had previously been editor-in-chief of the respected
publication Aviation Week and Space Technology. Although it seems unlikely that someone of his professional
stature would use the harsh and often crude language quoted by the Weekly World News, his quotes do indeed
appear to be legitimate. More credible publications have contained even worse expletives that Hotz has hurled at
NASA regarding both the Challenger and Columbia investigations.

It was because of NASA's perceived evasiveness that rumors like the fake transcript found such acceptance in the
conspiracy community. Yet regardless of how the brave astronauts faced their tragic ends, this forged "transcript"
does not record their final words and does little to honor their memories.
- answer by Jeff Scott, 22 January 2006